Guild Wars 2

I need a new CPU for WvW and other big events. I currently have a i5. Is this good enough?

https://www.komplett.no/product/857987/datautstyr/prosessorer/intel-core-i7-6700k-skylake-bundle

My processor is a i7 6700K skylake and that is completely overkill for gw2 so that is defenitely good enough. What gpu do you have?

are you currently on a lga1151 socket? if yes, then the 6700k is the most powerful cpu you can currently buy.
and no, that cpu is not overkill for gw2. the only thing that matters in this game is single core speed – the latest i7 k models (6700k for lga1151 or 4790k for lga1150) do have plenty of that, with the included ability to overclock them for even more juice.

werdernator.6105:

are you currently on a lga1151 socket? if yes, then the 6700k is the most powerful cpu you can currently buy.
and no, that cpu is not overkill for gw2. the only thing that matters in this game is single core speed – the latest i7 k models (6700k for lga1151 or 4790k for lga1150) do have plenty of that, with the included ability to overclock them for even more juice.

Yeah but he may want a cheaper CPU depending on his financial state if he is a student or something like that he may want something cheaper. Although that link is a Norwegian one if I’m not mistaken so chanses are he is pretty rich (that oil money you know) :P

Felwal.9618:

My processor is a i7 6700K skylake and that is completely overkill for gw2 so that is defenitely good enough. What gpu do you have?

I have a Geforce GTX 970 Direct CU II OC.

werdernator.6105:

are you currently on a lga1151 socket? if yes, then the 6700k is the most powerful cpu you can currently buy.
and no, that cpu is not overkill for gw2. the only thing that matters in this game is single core speed – the latest i7 k models (6700k for lga1151 or 4790k for lga1150) do have plenty of that, with the included ability to overclock them for even more juice.

Sadly I can’t say, because I don’t know. I bought my computer back in 2012 and I have only upgraded my GPU.

Felwal.9618:

werdernator.6105:

are you currently on a lga1151 socket? if yes, then the 6700k is the most powerful cpu you can currently buy.
and no, that cpu is not overkill for gw2. the only thing that matters in this game is single core speed – the latest i7 k models (6700k for lga1151 or 4790k for lga1150) do have plenty of that, with the included ability to overclock them for even more juice.

Yeah but he may want a cheaper CPU depending on his financial state if he is a student or something like that he may want something cheaper. Although that link is a Norwegian one if I’m not mistaken so chanses are he is pretty rich (that oil money you know) :P

Haha, you’re right about it being Norwegian. The price for that CPU has to be my limit. I just finished school and I am still looking for a job x). Shouldn’t be a too big of a problem once I get one though.

TBH I need to buy a new cabinet and with it a new motherboard too. When i bought the GPU I found it to be too big, so I had to be a little creative with some pliers.

My poor harddrive rack :’( :P

werdernator.6105:

are you currently on a lga1151 socket? if yes, then the 6700k is the most powerful cpu you can currently buy.
and no, that cpu is not overkill for gw2. the only thing that matters in this game is single core speed – the latest i7 k models (6700k for lga1151 or 4790k for lga1150) do have plenty of that, with the included ability to overclock them for even more juice.

Single thread benchmark

Lipzipper.3160:

Felwal.9618:

My processor is a i7 6700K skylake and that is completely overkill for gw2 so that is defenitely good enough. What gpu do you have?

I have a Geforce GTX 970 Direct CU II OC.

running a 6700 with a 960gtx, blobs still make my game froze when they have “to much AOE” being spammed, and need to run gw2 at minimal.
~
Even in a desktop i have access once in a while with a 6700 oced to 4.5 plus a 980gtx game has its momments altough they are super rare it all deppends the aoe floating arround and the splash animations floating arround.

Every current CPU i5 and up, last gen and 2 or 3 gens before that is “good enough”.

None of them will perform great when zerging.

You can wvw/gw2 in general with max graphics and frame rates above 60fp’s with an Intel i5 4690k as the cpu and an nvidia gtx960 as the gpu. Was my budget build for a while.

You should check out online retailers like newegg. They have a lot of good deal’s going on right now this close to the holidays.

Or Anet could add on DX12 support!

DX12 uses more than just the first core in games, and for GW2 would allow the game to properly utilise modern graphics cards!

Still being on DX9, the game engine is just too old and is limited to what it can do.

for big events or wvw i set to the graphic in pic

have 660 gtx and i7

Crowfear.1509:

for big events or wvw i set to the graphic in pic

have 660 gtx and i7

I can see that you have character limit at low. This is why I consider a new CPU so that I will be able to actually see all the characters.

Lipzipper.3160:

Crowfear.1509:

for big events or wvw i set to the graphic in pic

have 660 gtx and i7

I can see that you have character limit at low. This is why I consider a new CPU so that I will be able to actually see all the characters.

That will be hard with pretty much any processor gw2 isn’t that well optimised for large fights

Buy Some Apples.6390:

Or Anet could add on DX12 support!

DX12 uses more than just the first core in games, and for GW2 would allow the game to properly utilise modern graphics cards!

Still being on DX9, the game engine is just too old and is limited to what it can do.

They cant upgrade to the newest DX, their engine has compatibility issues and will come with a lot of bugs, their game engine was made by them is very old

That is why they just dont upgrade, it will cost them a lot of money, time and resources to be able to either get a new updated engine from third party like unreal or update the core system and programming from their currently, thought they will say it wont bring a lot of usefulness to update which is a lie

Try a couple monitors to find where the most load is while running GW2. The Intel® Power Gadget 3.0.7 (Windows 64-bit) for your CPU load and GPU-Z v1.12.0 to monitor GPU load .Or try openhardwaremonitor-v0.8.0-beta. These might give you an idea where the most work is being done helping you decide where your upgrades should be.Heres mine with and without game running.

I run GW2 on a Surface Pro 2 which is an i5-4300U with integrated graphics and a total of 4GB RAM. Runs great if you turn all the settings down

If it runs on that, it should run on about anything.

I just recently built a new pc and was running with just a 6700k running at 4.6ghz for about a week before getting a gpu. The game ran fine with it since the hd530 integrated on the chip is reasonably strong. about 40-50 frames in lions arch and with low settings never played on powerpoint in WvW. All while still having music and other things open in the background. Although a dedicated gpu will alleviate some of the load from it and will give you a much better experience.

You will still dip to 25-30 frames in a large fight though regardless of how good your cpu is. Im using a 1070 too.

juno.1840:

I run GW2 on a Surface Pro 2 which is an i5-4300U with integrated graphics and a total of 4GB RAM. Runs great if you turn all the settings down

If it runs on that, it should run on about anything.

Nope. Not in WvW with blobs.

For WvW you should have a high clocked Intel unlocked CPU (i5 is fine if you don’t stream and don’t use anything other than GW2 and TS otherwise i7) and a discrete GPU with GDDR5 , GRR5X, or HBM. The GPU counts less.

Turn down model limit and post process.

If AMD Zen has the 40+ improvement in “single threaded” performance then it may be worth buying but at this point an Intel unlocked CPU is the way to go.

If it’s a new PC I’d probably do something like

CPU: Intel Core i7-6700K or Intel i5-6600K
CPU cooler: ~$30-40 CRYORIG H7 , be quiet! PURE ROCK , Thermalright TS-140 or equivalent well-made cheap cooler
Motherboard: Z170 chipset with heatsinks on 6+ phase power delivery, such as a Gigabyte GA-Z170X-UD3 , Gigabyte GA-Z170XP-SLI, ASRock Z170 Extreme4, ASRock Z170 Extreme6 , MSI Z170A SLI Plus, MSI Z170A Krait Gaming 3X, MSI Z170A GAMING M3 or M5, ASUS Z170 Pro Gaming , ASUS Z170-AR
Memory: 2×8GB DDR4-2400 Corsair Vengeance LPX or G.Skill Ripjaws V Series
SSD: Crucial MX300 or Samsung 850 EVO
GPU: GTX 1050 Ti for low settings, R9 390 /RX 470 / RX480, GTX 970 if discounted or GTX 1060 GB if on 1080P , R9 Fury or GTX 1070 if on 1440p
Power supply: EVGA SuperNOVA G2 in 550W or 650W

Infusion.7149:

Nope. Not in WvW with blobs.

Indeed lol.

I tried my SP2 (i5) a short while when my 980Ti broke. Its surprisingly playable on low graphics settings sure, but only in simple PvE areas (and possibly spvp, I never tried that). Anything more complicated like meta events or WvW is pretty much unplayable. I became physically ill due to choppy low fps (yes, I nearly vomited after 5 minutes, not to mention the insta-headache). Nope, had to run out and buy a 1060 instead while the other is in the shop.

Gw2 is highly dependent on single core performance
Try using https://www.cpubenchmark.net/singleThread.html to help decide the CPU.

Lipzipper.3160:

Crowfear.1509:

for big events or wvw i set to the graphic in pic

have 660 gtx and i7

I can see that you have character limit at low. This is why I consider a new CPU so that I will be able to actually see all the characters.

you will still need to run everything on low in wvw even if you have an i7 or a gtx 10xx

so if you are upgrading to make gw2 run better you are wasting your time and money.

It does run well in WvW at least outside of zergs maybe 100-120 fps. But in zergs maybe 20-40 fps depending on AoE spam and it may spike lower If the zerg is big enough. It’s playable but far from optimal when I can easily run games like battlefield 4 on ultra with over 144fps most of the time. I haven’t tried battlefield one yet so can’t say anything about that. I’m running a i7 6700k and a msi geforce 1070 gaming X.

There have been threads about which settings to turn down and which ones you can keep high. I can’t find it now but I think it was to turn down (maybe someone else can be more specific):

Either Shaders or Shadows (always get those two mixed up)
I think Vertical Synch should be unchecked.
And there’s a particular Anti-aliasing that works better.
Postprocessing off.

And I’ve found significant improvement if I run it in Windowed mode (the Resolution dropdown). You can use the same resolution but instead of Full Screen, use Windowed.

I have an i5, no overclocking and an old 580Ti and it runs decent. The skill lag, which is server side, is worse than the FPS drop in large fights.

Dawdler.8521:

Infusion.7149:

Nope. Not in WvW with blobs.

Indeed lol.

Don’t know what to say, other than “yep, it even runs in WvW with blobs”. Might be a testament to the i5-4300U, but more likely it’s due to how well GW2 scales for different hardware platforms.

GW1 was same way — it would scale down extremely well.

Try downing your settings — if that’s not acceptable, then do buy some new hardware.